Stronger
by FantasyDeath
Summary: When Naruto turned six years old, he was kicked out of the orphanage and forced to survive on his own. Spying on some academy students, he learned the Henge no Jutsu and created a new identity for himself in order to live in a world that would like nothing more than to break him. Thus, ten year old Katsumi Makoto was born. (future slash)
1. Chapter 1

**Stronger**

 **Summary:** When Naruto turned six years old, he was kicked out of the orphanage and forced to survive on his own. Spying on some academy students, he learned the Henge no Jutsu and created a new identity for himself in order to live in a world that would like nothing more than to break him. Thus, ten year old Katsumi Makoto was born.

 **(WARNING! Slash, OOC characters, possible bashing, possible all male multi-pairing, possible m-preg, strong Naruto, possible spoilers, possible grammar and spelling mistakes (tell me if you find any please), erratic updates at best, diverging from canon)**

 **Note:** So I am well aware I should't be starting a new story, but I just couldn't stay away from this. So yeah, updates will definitely be erratic, I don't have a schedule for when I write and I can't exactly update a non-existing chapter.

 _Edited 2016/03/07_

 **Chapter One**

Naruto was at the academy and they were teaching the students the Henge no Jutsu. It was apparently a chakra technique that would make you look like someone else and at the moment, it was exactly what Uzumaki Naruto needed. It had been a month since he had been kicked out of the orphanage he had spent his six year of life in and he was already sick of it. He'd spent the days looking for food and whatever money he could find and the nights sleeping in an alley he had found. When he wasn't doing that, he was getting beaten by some villager or another. The only upside was that he learned to hide his presence from the drunk ninja's that would sometimes join.

So now he was outside the ninja academy where a lesson was taking place on how to do a henge and though he could barely hear what they were saying because of the only slightly opened window he was crouched beside, he saw enough to make up for it. He watched, transfixed, as the teacher showed the class the result of a correctly done henge thinking about how helpful it would be if he knew that. He had some money saved up because no-one would let him buy anything from their shops and when they did, it was so overcharged it was barely worth it.

If he could do the henge than he might actually survive past his eight birthday.

At the start, he had waited for Hokage-jiji to find him and help him, but when a week passed and he didn't come, Naruto came to the conclusion that he would need to survive on his own. As such, he had finally found his way to the ninja academy. He could use chakra, but his control wasn't very good, but for a henge, it would need a lot of chakra anyway, right? It was what he needed nonetheless.

After looking as the teacher repeated the process three more times, he left when it was the students time to try. During his time running away from drunk ninja's, they always seemed to find him easier if he used chakra so he could obviously not try it so close to the academy. Once he was at a unused training ground, he quickly started working on the henge. Four hours later, he could do it well enough that he was satisfied. Now the only problem was finding an identity he liked.

The first thing was his whisker-like marks on his cheeks. People could easily tell who he was as as far as he knew, he was the only one with the marks in Konoha. The next was his hair, blond hair was unusual and he would need to change the color. However, he didn't want black or brown hair. After thinking about it for a while, he decided on red. He would keep his hair the same, only slightly longer os it went past his shoulders, and change the color to deep red. He would leave his eyes as they were.

Then came the next problem. Everyone knew how old he was. He would either need to make himself older, especially if he wanted to find a job and get more money without having to steal, or younger and hope he would be welcomed back into the orphanage as someone else. But he didn't want to be younger and he didn't want to go back to the orphanage that he had always hated. He didn't want to know how the Matron would treat him if she thought he was someone else.

Naruto thought and decided that age ten would be best, it would hopefully be old enough for him to get a job somewhere and than maybe he could even buy his own apartment!

Now, Naruto didn't have the best chakra control and had missed a few parts when learning the jutsu, making a new altogether jutsu thanks to the Kyuubi's chakra that had slowly but surely been turned into his own since the Kyuubi was sealed into him. And as he didn't know the henge was supposed to be just an illusion, the result was...different. His henge was solid and physically changed his body until he got the result he wanted. The mix of his own and the demonic chakra easily found the red gene in his DNA and didn't waste any time in pulling it to the front and equally fast aged him around four years. The slightly starved look was still there together with the lean muscles and the blue eyes.

The result was a different person. Of course, there was similarities, but no-one would want to look closer. They didn't want to think that the demon brat would have family somewhere and as such, they wouldn't look closer. To them, Naruto was not human and should stay that way. Thankfully his clothes were big enough that they still fit. The black shirt and orange jacket together with the orange pants were about the only clothes he had.

Naruto looked down at himself and after a few stumbles while he got used to the shift in balance, he started walking away from the training ground. It was time to find work.

During his walking, he came to the realization that he needed a new name. He didn't have a problem with his name, but if he went around calling himself Naruto, then it would ruin everything. He needed a new name that started with different letters and that actually meant something unlike Naruto which meant fishcake and was a ramen topping.

Not that he didn't like ramen, in fact he loved it.

In the end, he settled for Makoto. He would decide on a surname later.

Naruto quickly walked into Konoha. His first order of business was to find a job and then it was to get food. Real food, not scraps from a dumpster.

It was surreal to him. The way the people treated him when they thought he was someone else. It suddenly hit him that he could finally do all of the things he wasn't allowed to before. He would even be allowed into the public library! He was lucky that a genin who had been on babysitting watch at the orphanage had taught him to read and that he picked it up fast. He had been sad when he learned she had died on duty, but maybe now he could go and visit the Memorial Stone for the people who was Killed In Action. He hadn't been allowed to before.

He walked through the market place, trying to figure out something he could do. Eventually he entered a clothes shop. Perhaps he could work as a cashier. Unfortunately, it turned out that the shop wasn't hiring. This process repeated itself until he came across a small weapons store.

The shop was small and the walls were filled with weapons of different kinds and in the left corner, there was even some shinobi clothing. Naruto almost salivated thinking about wearing such clothes himself.

A man walked out from a room with a smile on his face and Naruto bowed and smiled back. "My name is Katsumi Makoto, I was wondering if you are hiring?"

"Aren't you a little young to be looking for a job? You should be in school."

Naruto looked at him in the eyes and tried to let him know he was desperate. I need money. Are you hiring?"

"Alright, I guess we kind find something for you to do."

— —

The next three weeks went by relatively fast as he had something to do. His new boss, Katsu Takeshi, was a kind man in his mid forties that used to be a traveling samurai before he decided to settle in Konoha some five years ago. As such, he wasn't there at the time of the Kyuubi attack and as he hadn't lost any family in it, he didn't have any foul feelings for Naruto. Though he didn't know who Makoto really was, he was kind and Naruto came to the conclusion that he liked working in the shop. Katsu-san even taught him how to properly take care of weapons.

Naruto trained in chakra control in his free time and Katsu-san had sworn he was going to show him the basics of swords. To be honest, Naruto was having the time of his life and by the end of the month he would get his first payment and then he would be able to buy an apartment for himself and get away from the streets. He had never been happier.

Katsu-san came out from behind the shop, a box of kunai's in his hands. "Makoto, you've talked about the academy quite a lot, do you want to become a shinobi?"

Naruto nodded and smiled. "Yeah, I wanna be a kick-ass ninja, Katsu-san!"

"Well, I know you said that you don't have much alone time, so I came up with a solution. If you know enough, you can take the graduation exam at the end of the year. You'll need to know a lot though, but the academy can get you a pass to get into the shinobi part of the library without any trouble. Mostly, this way is used by clan kids that doesn't have enough time to go to the academy. However, because you won't be there at classes, you will automatically be the dead last no matter how well you do on the exam." said Katsu-san.

"Seriously?" Naruto screamed. "Awesome! I'm gonna be a ninja." And thus, he was dancing in his head.

— —

Studying for taking the exam without any help but books was a lot harder than what Naruto had thought. Takeshi — because he insisted he wasn't good with formal stuff, and didn't he call him Makoto? — helped him with kenjutsu and taijutsu. Well, really it was just hand to hand combat but it was better than nothing and he had already checked with the academy. He didn't have to know the academy style taijutsu as long as he knew some form of hand to hand combat that he was passable in. Other then that, what he focused most on was chakra control.

He had become fascinated by genjutsu when he read about it and knowing how to heal himself was always a plus. The problem was that both of those skills required excellent chakra control. Control that he didn't have.

The next year went by fast. Naruto made it a habit of sitting in on lessons at the academy once a month if he had the time, though usually it wasn't with the class he would graduate with if he managed it. He did learn how to erase all evidence of a camp on one of those lessons though. And how to make storage seals. Those he made good use of. Two months after he started working for Takeshi, he rented an apartment. It wasn't anything fancy, in fact it was quite rundown and didn't even have warm water. However, it was far better then before and if he lived there, it would be faster to save up enough money to buy a better place. Besides, ninja stuff and weapons was expensive.

Naruto also met with Sarutobi-jiji and came to the conclusion that he was blind. Naruto started getting money once a month though, and he was pretty sure he was meant to buy an apartment with it. He showed Hokage-jiji the alley where he slept and the Matron was ordered to accept him back into the orphanage. The Matron hated him however, and chased him away just as quickly as before. Naruto didn't much care for it, he quite liked how he lived now.

And so the time passed. Naruto trained the best he could with taijutsu and kenjutsu, hoping that if he got a high enough score on it, it would be enough to negate the things he didn't know. History and books were boring. The only things he really knew of history was that the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato, was a hero who died fighting the Kyuubi no Youko. Basically, that was all he bothered to know, and he didn't much care for the past either way. He'd also started to learn how to cook. Once Takeshi found out he was an orphan and living on his own — he didn't need to know he had lived on the streets for months before his current residence — he had started to teach Naruto how to cook, saying it was a skill everybody needed.

Naruto wasn't exactly complaining.

"So how are your studies going?" Takeshi asked.

Naruto slurped up the last of the ramen in the bowl and asked for another miso ramen. He really loved ramen. "Good I think. I managed the kawarimi a few days ago and I know the henge. My chakra control is better too. I've been practicing, but no matter how hard I try, I just can't get the bunshin right. They always come out looking dead and colourless." he pouted.

Takeshi laughed. "I'm sure it'll solve itself as long as you continue to practice and train. If you don't try, you will never know."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up old man. I'd like to see you try to make a bunshin."

Naruto ignored the mock hurt look Takeshi gave him and shaked his head in a way that suggested he was used to it. He could see Teuchi and Ayame, the owner of Ichiraku Ramen and his daughter, laughing at them. Honestly, sometimes Takeshi acted more childish than he did.

Thinking of his training did little to improve his mood. It was a lot harder to train when he didn't have a teacher helping him. Sometimes he could get some answers out some chuunin and genin's feeling helpful, but it wasn't often. Despite spending around an hour every day doing chakra control exercises, his chakra control wasn't getting much better and he was running out of patience.

Honestly, sometimes he thought it was more work then it was worth. He was six years old for heaven's sake and he had a short attention span. As much as he wanted to be a famous shinobi, he liked working with Takeshi. But then he thought how much he could change the world and the things he could learn. Besides, he wanted to see the world and the easiest way to do that was to become a ninja.

Once he was back at his apartment after eating ramen with Takeshi, he immediatly sat down on the floor and took out the bag of leaves he had. He was up to 16 leaves and thought he had made good progress.

The leaf exercise was a basic one but it was one that was easiest to do and he didn't need to go anywhere special to do it as long as he kept a couple of leaves in his apartment. He started small and gradually added more leaves to his body—and he looked like himself now—and upping the difficulty. It got harder as time passed and he added more leaves, but he needed to do this exercise if he wanted to seriously study medic-ninjutsu. Two hours later, and he went to bed.

Naruto was aware that there was a very large chance he would fail the exam, especially as aside from Takeshi, no-one had trained him. He wasn't a clan kid and didn't have powerful parents that could teach him stuff. But he so wanted to pass. He wanted to be a ninja and he wanted people to respect him. To look at him and _see him_. Not to call him "demon brat" and throw rotten food at him. To acknowledge him.

Really, he just wanted people to smile at him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto or anything you may recognize. (forgot to write this last chapter)

 **Note:** So all things that had possible ahead of it in the warning in ch 1 are things I'm unsure about. I've got this entire thing planned out until the chuunin exams, but after that I have no idea. As such in the warning there are things that _might_ happen. This story has been kind of quiet for months now but around christmas I started writing it again and I can't rule out the possibility that that might happen again. It's why it's written that updates will be erratic. They could come fast and often or slow and almost never. I honestly can't tell. But enough about that and I hope you enjoy the next chapter.

 _Edited 2016/03/07_

 **Chapter Two**

The day of graduation came faster then he would have liked. Naruto knew that there was plenty that he didn't know and that he would probably fail the written portion of the exam. He hadn't exactly had a lot of time to practice his writing skills and sometimes he honestly couldn't tell what he had written.

Naruto bit down on his lip as he drew his last kunai and threw it. To his luck, it hit the target. It wasn't anywhere near the middle, but at least eight of his kunai's hit. Only six of the shuriken hit the target though, but hopefully it would still be enough that he could still pass. He could see the other kids glancing at him, wondering who he was. To their belief, he was two years younger than them. He wondered what they would think if they knew he was really five years younger. He wondered if they would bully him, but then threw the thought away, this wasn't the time to think about something that could never happen.

When it was time for the taijutsu portion of the exam, Naruto didn't bother to remember the teacher's name. He didn't want to think about the fact that he could very well fail and then what? As much as he wanted to be a ninja, he was realistic enough to realize he might not get the chance.

And it would really suck if he had to wait another five years to get the chance again.

By the time it was time for the ninjutsu portion of the exam, Naruto was so nervous he couldn't sit still. His thought was on the subject of possible teammates. He had no idea who he would be graduating with and so couldn't honestly say he had any idea of who he wanted to be on a team with. He had no intention of slacking off though, even if he didn't like his future teammates in the end, he would still do his best to keep them safe. But first he had a test to pass.

"Katsumi Makoto!" an assistant instructor whose name he thought was Umino something called out.

Naruto hopped off the chair he was seated at and ran out the door. In the classroom, a teacher was waiting. He didn't know who he was, but Umino-sensei had followed him and he seemed kind enough.

"Alright, start with the kawarimi." Naruto did as asked and switched with a chair and then switched back. He thought he did well enough, kawarimi was something he liked training in because it wasn't that hard once he got it down and it was fun surprising Takeshi with switching something behind him.

The teacher glanced at him. "Good enough, next henge."

He carefully made himself look like the teacher and waited for the okay. He couldn't believe his luck, he wouldn't be required to do the bunshin, he sucked at it. When the ninja gave him the dark blue headband with the metal piece on it, he let out a whoop of joy and put it on as fast as he could. He ran out from the room and let out another whoop. He was a ninja!

He was a genin and shinobi!

This required ramen to properly celebrate.

Naruto ate his ramen with Takeshi and was already on his ninth bowl. Takeshi had been happy for him when he saw the hitai-ate and had declared he would be paying for the ramen as a congratulating present. Naruto wasn't complaining.

Seriously, this was the best day of his life.

He was a shinobi, dattebayo!

It deserved to be repeated, damn it!

— —

Naruto said goodbye to the librarian and hurried back home. He had returned the books he had borrowed on chakra control and lent knew ones on medical ninjutsu. It wasn't any hard books, they were for beginners and talked more about bruises and cuts and the human body. Where everything was, what it did and what it was called. Naruto wasn't really sure if he wanted to be a medic-nin, he wanted to do cool flashy jutsu's but he figured that learning how to heal himself could only be a plus. So he would try to learn the little things, like how to fix cuts and bruises and see if he wanted to continue after that.

His apartment wasn't big, it was basically a kitchen, a small bathroom, a bedroom/living room. The walls were a light blue and the floor was light wood. There wasn't any furniture aside form the bed, table, the bed table and bookcase. He didn't need anymore than that and he was saving his money for other things.

He mostly ate instant ramen, but he had fruits that he snacked on. One of the medical books he had tried to read had mentioned nutritions. He needed to eat much too, because of how high his metabolism was. There was apparently a reason he could eat nine to twelve bowls of ramen in a single setting. As such, he needed to eat things that were more filling than ramen all the time. It sucked, but he did it for the sake of getting taller.

Naruto sat down at the table and opened the book. The first chapter talked about chakra pathways which was why he had chosen the book. He was aware he had more then normal chakra which was why he generally spent about one to two hours a day walking walls. Without hands.

It was awesome.

Naruto started reading and was pretty much lost to the world soon after. He had a habit of closing everything out when he read. It was a working problem.

— —

"...Team 3 will be Uchiha Satoshi, Hyuuga Mari and Katsumi Makoto. Your sensei is Gekko Hayate. Team 4 will be..."

Naruto stopped listening and sank down in his seat. It was pretty easy to figure out who his teammates were, there was only one girl in the class with pupiless white eyes and Satoshi had, like all other Uchiha, a big Uchiha fan on the back of his shirt. Naruto knew they were the top of the class and were probably better then him, but some day he would beat them, and that's a promise!

Time passed and he waited for their new sensei to arrive and get them. Eventually the door opened and Team 3 were told to meet at the swings outside the academy.

Naruto followed the two other children that he were to be on a team with outside and looked at them. They didn't look like much, but he had learned in the last year that looks could be decieving.

They say down on the swings and Naruto swallowed the lump in his throat.

Their new sensei looked them over. "You can call me Hayate-sensei, I am a kenjutsu master and am responsible for you until you make chuunin or dies. Your turn Hyuuga."

The Hyuuga girl looked down. "My name is Hyuuga Mari, I am thirteen years old and my dream is to be a medic-nin and be useful to my clan."

"I am Uchiha Satoshi, twelve years old, my dream is to be in ANBU. I want to be a ninjutsu master." said the dark eyed Uchiha.

Naruto swallowed for the second time. "My name is Katsumi Makoto and my dream is be the best kenjutsu master in the world! I'm ten years old and I work in a weapons shop in my free time to pay rent. My hobby is reading medical books and scrolls so I can heal myself and I love ramen! I want to learn super-cool jutsu's."

Hayate-sensei nodded. "We will meet tomorrow at nine a clock at training ground 3 for the survival test to see if you deserve to be genin or should be failed and sent back to the academy. Don't be late."

Naruto hurried home after Hayate-sensei was done explaining. He needed to make sure he had everything packed for tomorrow, who knew what the test would be. First he made sure he had packed the weapons he had and knew how to use. He didn't actually know how to use ninja stars so he couldn't bring them. Then he packed a few medical scrolls that Takeshi had given them, perhaps he could loan them to Mari if she got there early. Then he packed his pranking supplies, you never knew when an opportunity would present itself.

After he had packed and eaten for the night, he started doing his exercises. He couldn't stop doing them just because he was a ninja now, he would need to ask Hayate-sensei for tips later.

The next morning, Naruto made sure he was at training ground three eight-thirty in the morning with some snacks packed just in case. He had brought the red and black backpack with what he had packed the night before and sat down and started sticking paper-pieces to himself. It was an experiment to see if it was more efficient then the leaves.

When Mari showed up, Naruto stopped the exercise and skipped up to her. "Hey, you said you wanna be a medic-nin, right? You can borrow my scrolls if you want, I don't really understand them yet." he beamed at her and gave them to her as she nodded.

As Mari started reading the scrolls and Satoshi came and sat down on the grass next to him, Naruto pulled out an apple and started eating it. As he saw the look Satoshi gave the apple, Naruto pulled out another one and gave it to him. He knew what it was like to go hungry after all, and they were teammates now. Teammates supported each other and helped them out. Naruto was just doing was he was supposed to do.

Hokage-ojiisan had said so.

Naruto had his hitai-ate tied around his forehead and his spiky red hair was, like always, untameable. Naruto ignored the looks he got form Hayate-sensei when he showed up at nine on the dot.

"Alright, your job is to catch me, you have until midday to do so, if you don't, you will be sent back to the academy. You can use whatever you want."

"Alright!" Naruto immediatly took out his kunai's and started throwing them at his sensei. Unfortunately, it didn't succeed.

Hayate chuckled. "Start now. I will evaluate you at the same time to know what you need to work on if you pass."

Naruto blushed and followed after his teammates into the trees to hide. Once he was in a tree a fair distance from Hayate-sensei, he took out his pranking supplies. They were fairly new, but he had pranked a few people that he didn't like and that had thrown things at him before. He knew how the things worked at the very least and he didn't really know a lot about how ninja's caught people. He had really only worked on what he needed to know to pass the exam and what sounded interesting.

He took out the rope and glue. He had itching powder too, but he didn't think Hayate-sensei would like that. Naruto ran and started putting up the prank while Satoshi was trying his best to beat Hayate.

— —

Uchiha Satoshi wasn't sure what to think about his new teammates. On one hand there was a Hyuuga and the Hyuuga and the Uchiha had never been able to get along. On the other hand there was ten year old Katsumi Makoto who he had never seen before. He had asked his uncle about him but all he knew about him was that he had seen him some time when he bought new weapons.

So yes, he was a little confused.

He had heard of Hayate and knew that he was a Tokubetsu Jounin and wondered what made him be given a genin team.

— —

Hyuuga Mari was running from Hayate-sensei. Her attempt at catching him failed miserably and now she was running with her Byakugan on full display. She had underestimated him because of his caugh which was a really _stupid_ mistake.

— —

Naruto looked up as Satoshi stopped in front of him slightly out of breath. "We need to work together. Neither me nor the Hyuuga girl have gotten anywhere. I saw you doing something earlier, what was it?"

Naruto looked up at him. "It's a prank see, you get the person somewhere you want and then you drop a bucket of glue on them and as they fumble they'll trigger the tripwire and it'll drop another bucket of feather's on them."

Satoshi looked pained for a few seconds before he seemed to come to a decision and nodded to himself. "Alright, it'll have to do. Hyuuga should be here soon enough, now we just have to wait."

As Satoshi said, soon enough Mari came running into the clearing they were and as soon as Naruto saw who was chasing her, he attacked. He pulled out shuriken and threw them. He cursed himself as they were mostly off target and resolved to practice more. He brought out more kunai's and threw them as well. He could see, in the corner of his eye, that Satoshi had joined the attack and Mari had stopped running.

After that, things went fast. Hayate was not hit with the glue but he was hit with the feathers. Things kind of went downhill from there and three hours later, all of them were exhausted and no-one had managed to catch him. The feathers came close but Hayate-sensei evaded them easily. At the end, when midday came they laid on the grass of training ground three completely out of breath.

"Alright, you did well enough. The test was about teamwork and you passed. Congratulations." Naruto let out a whoop of joy and Hayate smiled. "Meet me hear tomorrow same time, we will train. Today, you can celebrate with your family."

Naruto waited until the his teammates were gone before he walked closer to Hayate-sensei. "Ehm, I was wondering if you could help me with my chakra control. I've done the leaf exercise a lot, but it doesn't seem to be helping and I want to learn genjutsu."

Hayate hummed. "Do you know tree-walking?"

"I walk on walls sometimes." he answered with a sheepish grin.

"Alright, it's the same principle." he said and walked to the closest tree. "You gather chakra at your feet and walk up like normal. Too much and you're pushed off, too little and you slide off. Look closely. Start with running up and mark where you get with a kunai."

Naruto watched as Hayate-sensei walked up the tree and grinned. That would be so cool to be able to do. He took out a kunai and started running towards the tree after he did the hand seal and gathered chakra at the bottom of his feets like Hayate-sensei said. He ran and about a meter from the ground, he was pushed off and barely had time to mark where he got with the kunai before he was on the ground nursing a bump on his head. This was different from when he walked on walls, though he wasn't sure exactly how. Just that it was. Maybe he should ask Hayate-sensei about it later.

Naruto got up again and pouted at the tree. He could do this! He would succeed, dattebayo!

Naruto spent the next nine hours doing the tree-walking exercise, ending up the most exhausted in his entire life when he finally managed to get to the first branch. Why he had to choose a tree with such high branches he didn't know, but he wasn't going to give up just because it was a little hard. After he had laid on the ground for half an hour trying to gather enough energy to get up, he finally managed to sit up and tried to gather his thoughts. His team was nice and he liked his new sensei. Hayate-sensei could teach him kenjutsu though he would have to ask extra nice and not prank him.

At his apartment, he made dinner and ate it slowly. He had gotten a lot better at cooking lately and had actually started liking the things he made rather than having to force himself to eat it like before. He happily drank his milk and ignored his sore muscles. They would be better tomorrow. He always healed really fast and had never had to stay at the hospital for more then two days, which was a plus for him because he hated it. Especially the smell.

After eating and taking a shower and brushing his teeth, he fell into his bed and fell asleep instantly. Really, he was exhausted.

When morning came, Naruto yawned and ate a breakfast that was made up of just instant ramen. He really was tired yesterday and simply didn't have the energy to make more to eat so early in the morning. He would have more energy soon, but as it was, he was still tired.

Naruto hurried to the training ground at the same time as yesterday. He started doing the exercise Hayate-sensei showed him the moment he got there and slowly but surely, he was waking up.

Satoshi walked up to him as he was getting prepared to run up again. "What are you doing?"

"Chakra control exercise." he answered just before he started running up the tree again. When he fell down he continued. "You gather chakra at the bottom of your feet and run up the tree." and up he ran again.

Satoshi nodded and came to the conclusion he should probably practice that too. Besides, it hurt his pride that a kid two years younger than him could do something he couldn't. He picked up a kunai and watched Naruto run up the tree again only to be blasted off. Then he copied him and started running.

Naruto smiled as he watched Satoshi fall down from the tree. He was making progress at least and Naruto was doing much better then he had the day before, but he wasn't going to stop until he could get all the way to the top. Then he was going to find a higher tree and start all over again. He was going to continue until he could walk up it however fast or slow he wanted, like Hayate-sensei.

When Hayate walked into the training ground, it was to find all three of his students running up trees and falling off again and again. He smiled as he saw the way they tried hard and didn't give up and given how far they could run up the tree, they were probably just learning it. Meaning Makoto had taught them. Yes, maybe this would be better then he thought. Maybe teaching wouldn't be as hard as he thought and he would be closer to Yūgao. He did miss her when he was away on long missions and now he was closer to her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes:** I thank all of you who have reviewed and shared your honest opinion of this story with me. It always makes me more excited when I see it. So thank your for reading and I hope you like the next chapter. Also no, Sarutobi doesn't know that Makoto and Naruto are one and the same yet, he will though so don't worry.

 _Edited 2016/03/07_

 **Chapter Three**

Three weeks later and Naruto had finally gathered up enough courage to ask Hayate-sensei if he would be willing to teach him kenjutsu. They did two D-ranks a week and trained five days a week. When they weren't training together, Naruto was mostly doing the tree exercise or working with Takeshi at his weapons shop. He really wanted to conquer the bunshin. It was now a personal goal for him.

"Hayate-sensei, I was wondering if...uhm...you could maybe...teach me kenjutsu?" Naruto asked, his voice getting lower and faster as he went. He really wanted Hayate to teach him, because what Takeshi taught him was mostly basic kata's and a few exercises to help increase his flexibility and strength. He didn't want to teach him something that could work against him as Naruto was to be a ninja.

Hayate looked at him for a few seconds. "It will not be easy. But you are still young, I guess if it's what you want. But don't think this means you won't have to train with your teammates."

Naruto nodded. "I won't. I swear I will work hard. I won't stop until I master it."

Hayate-sensei nodded. "Alright, start by showing me what you already know, if you know anything. We'll get you a proper sword too."

— —

Naruto ended up with a katana. It wasn't a proper katana in that it was a little shorter, but Hayate promised he would get another one when he was older and taller. After that, training started to really pick up. Every morning that they trained, Mari would train at iryo-ninjutsu, Satoshi would train his few ninjutsu's to perfection and Naruto would train kenjutsu with Hayate-sensei. He was slowly making progress, though the memory of the conversation when he told Hayate-sensei the truth of who he was still made him blush with embarrassment. Hayate-sensei hadn't been pleased with him.

Hayate had gone of on a rant about how it could ruin his training because he would only be training in one form. How it would mean that if he for some reason would be forced to return to his original form, he would be defenceless because he wasn't training his body in both forms equally. Naruto had then been ordered to train just as much as he trained as Makoto and it would take longer, Hayate-sensei said, but it was the best solution. Of course, Naruto had had to promise that he would tell the truth to Sarutobi-jiji when he makes chūnin.

Since then, Naruto had trained in both his forms equally. When he trained kenjutsu for two hours as Makoto, he would train for two hours in kenjutsu as Naruto. He needed to balance it, Hayate-sensei said, to make sure he didn't ruin his future by what he was doing. He _was_ Naruto and he couldn't abandon his real identity for a fake one, especially so young and when so many people would take notice if Naruto disappeared. Naruto didn't really understand what Hayate-sensei was talking about, he didn't change his personality, just the way he looked. And he didn't get why people would notice if he disappeared either.

Naruto was told he had two nature affinities, though the wind one was stronger. The other was water, which was awesome in his opinion. He didn't really know any ninjutsu yet though, aside from the henge and kawarimi. But Hayate-sensei had promised to teach him some when he had at the very least a good basic grip on his katas, as they weren't anywhere near perfect yet. But he was getting there! He just needed to practice more, until it became as easy as breathing, that was what Hayate-sensei said.

Naruto froze as he felt a kunai a the back of his neck. Damnit! "Makoto-san, you don't ever let your enemy get behind you. You'll be sparring with Satoshi-san now."

"Aww, but Sensei," Naruto pouted as Hayate-sensei chuckled. "I swear you were in front of me. And Satoshi doesn't like me much, he always turns down my invitations to get ramen with me."

Hayate ruffled his hair and Naruto tried swatting his hand away. It didn't work as he was still much to slow to lay a hand on Hayate-sensei. "Maybe he just doesn't like ramen. Now get going, I have a meeting with Hokage-sama in an hour to discuss your progress."

Naruto pouted but went over to where Satoshi was waiting with a glare. Yeah, he was pretty sure Satoshi hated him. The spar started as any other. Naruto did the first hit and Satoshi blocked and then everything was a flurry of kicks and hits. Really, their fights always ended up with one of them with a broken nose and a kick at their ego. Why Hayate-sensei continued to pair them together, Naruto couldn't understand.

There wasn't much that Naruto really wanted in his life, someone to acknowledge him, someone to love him for who he was, to know why everyone hated him, to know who his parents were and why they left him. That was it. Those things were his dreams, his goal in his life. Of course, he also wanted to be Hokage, but he knew that would take a long time. After all, Sarutobi-jiji was still going strong and he didn't want to leave his surrogate grandfather with nothing to do.

That would just be mean.

"Hey, hey, do you want to get ramen with me?"

Satoshi looked at him for a few seconds, a glare only seconds from sliding on to his face when something made him change his mind and he nodded with a frown. Mari looked at Naruto then at Satoshi and nodded, though it was clear she wasn't feeling comfortable. Nevertheless, she followed them to Ichiraku's and Naruto's whole face lit up as he beamed at his teammates. It was the start of a wonderful friendship, he was sure of it.

The walk to Ichiraku's was awkward but Naruto couldn't be happier. He had finally managed to get his team to eat ramen with him and now they would love it just as much as he did! No-one made ramen as good as Ichiraku! They would be converted to the Ramen God and would love it as much as him!

So yes, he loved ramen. Could you blame him?

Naruto was on his fifth bowl of ramen when Satoshi finally spoke up. "Your going to choke to death if you keep eating that fast."

"Nope! I always eat this fast! Hey, hey, what do you like to do on your free time?!" Naruto asked practially vibrating on his seat.

Satoshi glared at him. "Train, as should you."

Naruto looked at Mari. "What do you do?"

"I work on the Hyuuga's taijutsu style and mastering my Byakugan. Uhm, I like spending time with my little brother." Mari answered quietly.

Naruto grinned at his teammates and closed his eyes. "Great! I work in my free time or try to work on my chakra control."

Mari smiled back at him and Satoshi looked at him briefly. Naruto considered it a success as Satoshi hadn't glared at him like he usually did. Now he just had to keep being persistent and sooner or later his teammates would be his friends. Hayate-sensei had said that he was good at being persistent after the tenth time he had managed to get Hayate to let him train more kenjutsu by staring at him until he gave in. So all he had to do was continue to make them go get ramen — maybe Hayate-sensei would pay — and they would come around.

Naruto beamed at his teammates when they walked in different directions. He had work now and they would go home and do what it was they did when they're alone. He wondered if he could meet Mari's younger brother sometime, he really liked kids. Younger than him that is, toddlers, he didn't like kids his age, they bullied and teased him.

Takeshi wasn't there when he entered but Naruto didn't let it bother him and continued in. He had work to do, a bunch of kunai's, shuriken and clothes were going up on the shelf's. He walked into the back room and got out the box with the new clothes to the shop. He was used to this and he how it was to be done now. At the start he had had no idea what he had been doing, but Takeshi still let him work.

Naruto was seven years old now and still got money from the Hokage. He was really grateful for it as it made it much easier to get by. He never went out to buy things when he was _him_ though. Not after the first seven times he had been overcharged on bad and rotten food. Usually, when he didn't look like Makoto he was spending time with Hokage-jiji or trying to play pranks. He usually didn't succeed though, as the orange jumpsuit made it incredibly easy to be spotted and caught red-handed.

Not that he was going to get rid of it, his jiji had given it to him as a sixth birthday present.

Finished with the clothes, Naruto moved on to the weapons. It _was_ a weapons shop and the clothes was mostly just a plus, though most of it was shinobi clothing that a civilian would have no use of except it they wanted to try something new.

The bell above the door sounded as someone stepped in. Naruto stopped what he was doing and stood up. The man was young, a teenager practically. Naruto went to greet him when he turned around and Naruto could see the Uchiha fan on the back of his shirt. Naruto wasn't particularly fond of the Uchiha Clan, especially those that worked with the Military Police Force, as they were never very kind to him. They were also never afraid to mention that they hated him, though they never said why.

"Hello, can I help you?" Naruto asked. The Uchiha looked at him, his eyes briefly on his hitai-ate on his forehead before he looked away.

"Yes, I need a new tantō. I think I got swindled when I bought mine, as it broke recently and someone told me I could find one of much better quality here." he said with a sheepish smile as he answered. Naruto nodded, they had one in the back he could sell him.

"If you'll give me a second." Naruto said and went to get it.

The tantō was easy to find and Naruto quickly sold it to the Uchiha and went back to what he had been doing before. There was still a lot of things to be sorted through, to make sure they got the right quality and weren't swindled like the Uchiha was.

The rest of his evening was spent working and doing chakra control exercises during his breaks. His control was still awful and it needed to be a lot better if he wanted to learn genjutsu. He was only just managing to find them and break out of them, but that was how he had gotten a fascination with it. He wanted to make people able to see what he wanted them to. And besides, he had a ton of chakra, so if he could just get the necessary control over it he could be able to use genjutsu techniques that cost to much chakra for most to use.

It would be awesome if he managed it, he just knew it.

— —

Naruto woke up feeling refreshed and hatred for the sun. He wanted to sleep, damnit! He ate instant ramen for breakfast as he hurried as he was late for a team meeting. He would never hear the end of it if he was.

Naruto was well aware that it wouldn't be the first time he was late but he was trying to do better. And besides, when he was late Hayate-sensei always made him run a hundred laps around the training ground and he was not allowed to stop until he was finished. It sucked every time that happened. He didn't get very tired from it, as he had very good stamina and endurance, but it still sucked.

At the training ground, his team was waiting for him. He had gotten closer to them ever since he started to bug them until they went to get ramen with him. Hayate-sensei never went with them though, apparently he had a girlfriend named Yūgao. And that was when he got The Talk from Hayate-sensei. He really couldn't look him in the eyes for a few days after that, because really, it was embarrassing.

Naruto waved at his teammates. "Hey, hey, what's today's mission?"

"You're going to be babysitting the Sandaime's grandson, Sarutobi Konohamaru. Don't mess up." Hayate stated.

Naruto swallowed and nodded. He would do good. He liked the Sandaime and he would take good care of his grandson, even if he had no idea that Hokage-jiji had a grandson. But he was a professional and he would honor Hokage-jiji and accept this mission and get paid. He needed to buy new food, he was almost completely out.

"Alright, we will do our best!" Naruto shouted. Satoshi glared at him before rolling his eyes, which Naruto counted that as another success as the Uchiha normally didn't show emotions so freely.

The Sarutobi Clan Compound wasn't anything special. It was small and only had two houses including the main house. There was a training ground and a small forest on the edge of the property. Other than that, there was nothing special about it. Well other then the fact that it was the home of the Sandaime Hokage and Naruto was impressed. He had no desire to live in a big lonely mansion after he became Hokage and was worried for a while over it.

Naruto hurried ahead and walked to the door leading to the biggest house.

The babysitting mission went fairly well in the end. Konohamaru proclaimed he was going to be the next Hokage multiple times and followed Naruto around trying to make him play ninja with him. Naruto ended the argument by teaching the kid the chakra control leaf exercise.

Satoshi glared at the kid multiple times too but stopped every time the kid reminded them he was the son the great Sandaime Hokage. Naruto's patience was at its end by the time they were finished with the mission he was almost ready to snap. Honestly, he couldn't really understand how Konohamaru was related to Sandaime-jiji. They were practically nothing alike.

Oh well, at least they completed the mission successfully.

— —

Naruto glared at Satoshi as he once again called him an idiot. He was not an idiot. If he was he would of never succeeded with creating a new alternativ identity for himself to get money. Of course, he wasn't the smartest and his status as the dead last of the class didn't exactly help him.

But still, that didn't mean Satoshi got to call him an idiot all the time.

Naruto ignored the voice in the back on his head that said that sometimes he acted like an idiot and continued to glower at Satoshi. The other boy was sitting next to him at Ichiraku's counter and had finished with his ramen. Naruto though, was on his third bowl, it was to bad that he couldn't eat more than five in one setting as Makoto or people were going to start figuring out he was Naruto. And that would just spell bad things for him and he had no desire to see the inside of ANBU or T&I on the wrong side.

Naruto was not suicidal, thank you very much.

Naruto groaned as he finished the ramen. He could never eat the amount he wanted to and it sucked. Mari wasn't with that day as she had suffered an injury while training, leading her to being put on bed rest for a few days. It sucked because Naruto honestly considered her a friend now — one of his only friends, because however much Satoshi glared at him he was still Naruto's friend — and he worried about her when he found out from another Hyūga.

Not that he didn't think she would be okay, she was strong and she could take care of herself, though she was kind of shy until she got used to someone. It was more like she was really careful to be polite after that.

Not that Naruto minded, he loved his friends like they were.

Satoshi glanced at him. "My birthday is coming up, I'll be turning 13. Mother has insisted that I invite my team over, so you're welcome to come, I suppose."

"Of course I'll come! I wouldn't miss it for the world. Hey, what do you want for a birthday present?" Naruto asked and beamed at Satoshi. This was just proof that Satoshi was starting to think of him as his friend as Naruto knew very well that no-one could force Satoshi to do something he didn't want to do. Not even his mother, however scary she could be.

Satoshi looked at him and nodded. "It's saturday at three in the afternoon. I don't desire anything specific for my birthday and I know you don't have a lot of money. Make sure you're on time, you know which house is mine."

When they were finished, the first thing Naruto did was go to his work. He may not have a lot of money, but he knew that Satoshi wanted a tantō and at Takeshi's he got a ten percent discount. And the quality was good, too. Naruto really didn't know as much about the Uchiha as he would have liked, but that was mostly Satoshi's fault. Satoshi's father had left his mother when he was five years old to remarry his mistress, a younger Uchiha girl that was at that point already pregnant. Ever since then, Satoshi had been careful to not get to attached to other people especially as his father's new wife wouldn't even allow him to meet his younger siblings. He hated it.

So Naruto knew that to really get to know Satoshi he would need to be persistent and stubborn. Both things he was good at, and then it was only a matter of patience.

Takeshi was waiting for him at the shop and Naruto smiled at him relieved. He had started to think of Takeshi like a favorite uncle and it always made him feel a little bit better when he saw him. Takeshi was there for him when he needed to be cheered up and when the villagers words made him doubt himself, Takeshi was there to ensure him that he was no demon or monster and that the villagers were just blind and ignorant. They needed someone to blame the Kyuubi's attack on and Naruto supposed his whisker marks on his cheeks made him appear more like a fox and they thought him to be at fault suddenly.

Naruto still laughed when he thought of Takeshi's reaction when he told him the truth. His face had been hilarious. Of course, he had been angry to have been lied to, especially as Naruto was four years younger then he said, but he had understood and hadn't blamed him. It gave him hope that Hokage-jiji would understand too.

Takeshi smiled back at him. "Hey Makoto! Are you ready to start working or are you to sore and in too much pain again?" he said with a good-natured smile. He still called him Makoto and for that Naruto was grateful.

"That was one time, old man! I can work just fine. By the way, I wanna buy a tantō for Satoshi's birthday this saturday." Naruto said.

"I can put it away until saturday and take the cost straight out of your paycheck if you want, Makoto-kun." Takeshi smiled as he said it.

Naruto pouted. "Aww, don't call me that Takeshi. Then I have to be formal too and you know I'm not good at honorifics. But i guess if you want I can call you Takeshi-san too."

Takeshi laughed. "Don't worry Makoto, you can call me what you want. You're just so cute when you pout, it makes me want to lock you into a tower to protect you from perverts." he laughed some more and Naruto briefly wondered what a pervert was, but whenever he asked someone, they would just laugh and ignore the question. It was frustrating. Maybe Satoshi would know, he'd ask him the next time he saw him.

"How are your medical studies coming along Makoto?" asked Takeshi.

Naruto frowned. "Horrible. No matter how good chakra control I have, it's never good enough. I can heal cuts and bruises and I'm starting to learn how to recognise some common poisons, but I don't think I'm cut out to be a medical ninja. Hayate-sensei doesn't think so either. He said to just leave it to Mari."

Takeshi looked thoughtful. "Well, I suppose that not everyone is cut out for it and to be good at it you need excellent chakra control, something I don't think you will ever really have. You just have too much chakra."

Naruto pouted again. "I know. Hayate-sensei promised to teach me another clone jutsu though." Naruto smiled again as he thought about the promise Hayate-sensei had made. It was going to be awesome and much easier for him too. He would need to practice some more chakra control first though, but Hayate had _promised_ to teach him.

They talked some more and then another customer came and Naruto was forced to start working. He had no desire to get fired, even if Takeshi would probably try to soften the blow.

So Naruto spent the rest of the day working and then he went home. When saturday came, he picked up the tantō and hurried to the Uchiha Clan Compound. It was quite separated from the rest of the village and quite far from Naruto's, as such it took a while to get there. He had dressed up fancy and his red hair was up in a short ponytail. He was ready to have fun and irritate Satoshi. It was always fun to make him lose his cool. Naruto sniggered softly intio his hand as he thought about the prank with the pink paint and the feathers. That had been hilarious.

Satoshi opened the door and Naruto grinned at him. "Hey, happy birthday!"

Satoshi groaned. "I thought you weren't going to come."

Naruto laughed and shaked his head. "Of course I was going to come, we're friends, baka. Now do you have any ramen?"

Satoshi groaned again as Naruto laughed once more. "Just come in, my mother wants to meet you again."

Naruto walked further into the house, he had already given his present to Satoshi and hurried towards the kitchen. He liked Satoshi's mother Yumiko. She was kind and nothing at all like the other Uchiha's. He grinned again as he thought of another prank he wanted to do. He would need to learn fūinjutsu first though, but it would totally be worth it.


	4. Chapter 4

_Edited 2016/09/28_

 **Chapter Four**

Their first C-rank mission happened on a monday. It had been raining the night before so the ground was still wet and Naruto had been unable to resist jumping in a few puddles on the day to the Hokage Tower. Luckily, his team was used to his childish episodes and just ignored it.

When they got there, they hurried to the Hokage's office to pick up their next mission. Naruto was excited for the simple reason that Hayate-sensei had promised to teach him new kata's after the mission was finished successfully. It made him giddy as his new dream was to be just as awesome as Hayate-sensei. And to be Hokage of course, but kenjutsu was cool, how could he not love it? So yes, he was excited.

 _Extremely_ excited.

Satoshi glanced behind at Naruto and frowned. "Stop lagging behind, we need to be there first if we're going to avoid getting the Tora Capture mission again."

"Aww, I thought you loved Tora." Naruto teased.

Satoshi glared at him as if Naruto had said something majorly offensive. "I hate Tora. That cat is a menace. I am _not_ getting stuck with that stupid demon cat again."

Naruto laughed and scratched the back of his neck. He felt for his ponytail and was relieved when it was still there. Mari had made it for him, telling him to take better care of his hair and he did not want to piss her off again by ruining his hairstyle. She was surprisingly serious about it. "Come on, I know you love cats. And Tora isn't _that_ bad, you just need to be more patient with him. And besides, you're the one lagging behind." Naruto stuck out his tongue and darted forward to get further ahead of Satoshi. Really, Satoshi should know better by now.

He heard Satoshi cursing behind him and grinned as he went faster. Hayate-sensei and Mari had kept walking ahead of them, used to their ways by now and rather adapt at ignoring it.

So Naruto had a tendency to start fights with Satoshi, but he just couldn't help it. It was almost like a reflex and Satoshi was so good at hiding his feelings that screaming at his face and luring him into contests was really the only way to make him express his emotions. Supressing your feelings weren't exactly a good thing to do either. Really, he was doing Satoshi a favor. He should be grateful.

Naruto grinned as he stopped in front of the mission desk where Hokage-jiji was sitting handing out missions. Hayate-sensei and Mari were already there and he and Satoshi stood next to them. Satoshi looked emotionless again and Naruto pouted that all his effort had been for naught.

"Ah, here we are, the Tora Capture mission." the Hokage said and Naruto laughed at the look of horror that crossed Satoshi's and Mari's faces. Mari's face was steadily becoming redder until she exploded.

"No! Not again! I refuse to go through with it again! That cat is a terror! Give us another mission Hokage-sama, please!" she sank down to her knees and put her hands up like she was going to pray, "Please, Hokage-sama? I can't take it anymore. Even a babysitting mission is better then this. Do you hate us this much? Are we being punished Sandaime-sama? What did we do wrong? I'm being punished for my sins in my former life aren't I? Aren't I?! Did I kill a child?! Did I murder an infant?! Am I being punished Hokage-sama, for my sins?! Did I kill my own toddler?! Oh my god, I'm a kinslayer aren't I?! I killed my own child!"

Naruto stared in shock as Mari broke down in front of the Sandaime Hokage. Hayate-sensei stepped forward and took a hold of her to bring her up standing. Naruto looked on as Hayate-sensei spoke in a hushed voice to her and she calmed down and nodded. He wondered if he should say something, or maybe get her some professional help, but he also knew that when you were a ninja, everyone was a little bit crazy. Maybe some day he would break down too and think he had killed his own child in a previous life.

He glanced at Satoshi and saw him frowning, Satoshi walked up to Mari and Hayate-sensei and started whispering in Mari's other ear. He pouted when he couldn't hear what they were saying. Usually he would be able to hear but Hayate-sensei knew a technique that would mask sound for a small period of time.

It was really annoying.

Naruto looked up at Hokage-jiji when he heard a sigh. He watched as his jiji's face went pale and he palmed his face in his hands. He didn't really know what it was about but he thought he heard him say that it was a long time coming. Someone _always_ had a breakdown after graduation. Tora was just _that_ vicious.

He didn't really understand what they were talking about, sure Tora could be mean, but he was never vicious to Naruto. Perhaps there was another Tora that they were talking about. He would ponder upon this later, now he needed to find out why Mari thought she had killed her son in a former life. He just couldn't imagine her doing something like that.

Hayate-sensei looked up from where he stood next to Mari and locked eyes with Naruto. It took embarrassingly long for Naruto to get that Hayate wanted him to come closer. Naruto nodded and walked until he was next to Hayate-sensei. He looked at Mari and winced slightly, he had never seen her like that before. He had never seen anyone like that before. It was kind of scary now that he thought about it and he didn't have a clue on what to do to help her.

"I'm going to be taking Mari home and speak with her while you and Satoshi pack for our first C-rank mission. We will meet at the gate at 9.00 on the dot, understood? Make sure you pack your weapons and rations. Satoshi has already been told and I will tell Mari once she has calmed down. Make _sure_ to be on time or you will be doing D-ranks for another six months. Remember, _don't_ be late." Naruto nodded as Hayate-sensei finished explaining. It would be their first C-rank and he was excited but he was also worried about Mari. Would it be okay to leave her alone? Well, Hayate-sensei would be with her and Naruto trusted him. If he thought that Mari could still handle a C-rank mission than he would take his word for it.

Back at his apartment, Naruto packed everything in storage scrolls, they were so much easier to carry around. He found his mind wandering back to Mari a lot and wondering what could make her react like that. It couldn't he _just_ Tora, no matter how much she hated him. Naruto frowned as he picked up his backpack, he still needed something to store the storage scrolls in and he couldn't pack everything in them. He had yet to figure out how to store food without ruining it in the process.

When he was finished, he hurried to the gate to meet up with his team. His worry for Mari made him go faster then he usually did and he was there twenty minutes before they were supposed to meet up. Five minutes later, Satoshi showed up too and despite the emotionless face, he could see the worry in his eyes too. Naruto had learned that practically all Uchiha's were horrible when it came to showing their emotions, but that didn't mean they didn't care.

They waited and like always, nine on the dot, Hayate-sensei showed up and Mari was with him. She was smiling at them and although it was a little forced, she looked noticeably better than before.

Naruto grinned and ran up to her. "Hey, hey, are you feeling better now? Can I meet your little brother when we come back?" he switched his focus to Hayate-sensei and the questions continued. "What's our mission, sensei? Are we going to guard a princess?! Save a country from tyranny?! Tell me, tell me!"

Mari smiled at him. "Yes, I'm feeling better now and you can meet my little brother when we come back from out mission."

"Now," Hayate-sensei began. "our mission is to kill a group f bandits on the edge of Hi no Kuni. It's our first C-rank and as such we will be highly vigilant for anything that can go wrong. Make sure to keep your eyes open and be prepared for a change in plan. On this mission you will kill, and as such Yamanaka Inoichi will examinate you afterwards to make sure you can handle the shinobi lifestyle. Understood?"

Naruto nodded and could see Satoshi do the same in the corner of his eye. He would kill someone? Well he knew he would have to eventually, but he thought it would be awhile longer. He thought he had longer to get used to the idea. He wasn't sure how he was feeling about it, he always knew he would have to kill someone, missing-nin or bandit alike, but he thought he had more time before it would happen. He frowned in his head and almost slapped himself, this was no time to be getting cold feet. Being a ninja was his dream and he wasn't giving it up just because he had to kill earlier then he thought.

They left the gate five minutes after nine after making sure everyone had everything and hadn't left anything vital behind. They took to the trees and Naruto was hit with how amazing it felt to fly through them. The scenery changed around them as they jumped from tree to tree barely losing any speed and Naruto couldn't help but notice how beautiful it was. He wanted to slow down to take it all in but knew that if he did so then they would be slowed down. Hayate-sensei hadn't said anything about a time-limit but you could never be to careful.

When the sun went down, they stopped in a clearing and Naruto was given the all important duty of gathering fire-wood. He pouted the entire time he was looking for it, but by the time he came back he was beaming. He had found a gold-mine of fire-wood and was dragging it back to camp. Satoshi looked up from where he was setting up a dark green tent. "Hey, what took you so long? You'll be sleeping with me in my tent, Mari has her own tent to sleep in and so does Hayate-sensei. You were the only one stupid enough to forget to bring a tent."

Naruto frowned at him. "I don't _own_ a tent, how am I supposed to bring something I don't have?"

"It should be obvious that you need a tent, baka." Satoshi said with a smirk. Naruto stood in silence for a few minutes at the show of emotion. Then he beamed.

"Success! I am the best! You smirked Satoshi! Ha! This is so the best day of my life. Now we're friends, and you're not getting out of it! Best day ever!" Naruto grinned at Satoshi as he groaned and Naruto just beamed bigger because hey, more emotion. This is a success! He's making friends and it's his first C-rank mission. Best day ever! Mari was going to be his friend too and then he would two friends. Two! Becoming a ninja was the best decision of his life.

He was _so_ dancing in his head right now.

Naruto just continued grinning when Hayate-sensei and Mari came back with a couple of bunnies and skinned them. Not even that could make him stop. This was the best present he had ever gotten, even if it wasn't his birthday. Yeah, totally the best day ever. He couldn't wait to go back home and tell Takeshi.

Hayate-sensei looked at him. "What are you smiling about?"

"Me and Satoshi are friends now!" Naruto laughed.

Hayate smiled. "That's great Naruto, but you should take this chance to get some training in and then rest before we get there. You never know when something could go wrong."

Naruto nodded and went through his taijutsu katas while waiting for the food to be ready. Thankfully, Mari had brought with her spices so the food wouldn't be awful and compared to what he had eaten before, it was practically a feast. He had better food now of course, he could actually afford it and he wasn't thrown out when he bought food as Makoto, but still, when he was _him_ , when he was Naruto, people still only sold him old stuff and he was thrown out of more stores than he was allowed into. Being Makoto had really saved his life and he didn't regret it.

The rest of the night was spent with Naruto grinning and telling jokes to his teammates that he came up with on the fly. Satoshi never really laughed though, but Naruto could see him give small smiles once in a while and at the end of the day, wasn't that enough? Hayate-sensei told ghost stories and Naruto was horrified when he heard the one about the living doll. He didn't think he would ever look at a doll the same way ever again. Hell, even Mari told a ghost story, Naruto was sure he was going to have nightmares for a month, though Mari told them extremely well. It made him wonder if she had ever met a ghost which made him wonder if ghosts were real, which made him want to hide under the covers of his bed. Ghosts terrified him, that was all there was to it.

Despite the fact that the nightmare that he predicted he would have happened, Naruto managed to get a decent sleep and once they were on the way again, he was once again normal and proceeded to bother Satoshi endlessly. Naturally, Satoshi snapped and yelled at him which was just proof that they were friends because Satoshi didn't even really yell any hurtful stuff and he never really yelled at people either. He just glared at them with the infamous Uchiha Glare.

By the time they reached the border and the camp where the bandits were, Naruto's initial fear of killing had come back. It wasn't so much that he was afraid to kill, but rather that he didn't know if he could. He didn't know if it would change him. He didn't know if he would still even want to be a shinobi anymore. It was that fear that made him hesitate when they went closer to the camp.

What if he ruined everything?

He wasn't a very good shinobi, even he knew that, but he was trying so very hard to catch up. Mari was teaching him all those things that you were supposed to learn at the academy and he was working hard on his aim. He had the strength but when it came to accuracy he was sorely lacking. What if he got his team killed?

It felt like he was suddenly hit with every doubt he had ever had and he had this urge to run away to Konoha and never leave it again. But he had to do this. Being a shinobi was his dream! He knew that this would happen eventually!

He could do this, no he _would_ do this. He could have doubts when he was finished, but right now he had a mission to complete. He had signed up for this, he couldn't back out now.

When the signal came, he was hiding in the bushes. Mari was across the clearing up in the trees, ready to use her kunai's and Byakugan to kill anyone who tried sneaking up on them. Hayate-sensei was to his right and Satoshi was in another bush, ready to jump out. Hayate-sensei gave the signal and he and Naruto jumped forward.

The first bandit he went after didn't even see him. Naruto had his kunai buried in his throat before he could make a sound and by the time he was dead Naruto just stared at him. He heard something behind him and saw Satoshi standing behind him with his tantō against a sword. Satoshi swung it and the sword fell out of the bandits hands as his grip gave way and before he could try to get it again, Satoshi drove the tantō through the bandits stomach. Satoshi looked at him as he drew the tantō out and spoke. "Don't just stand there. You can think about it later, but now we have a job to do. Don't give them the chance they need to kill you. At least go out with a bang."

Naruto glanced around him and saw kunai's and shuriken's raining from the tree Mari was in and Hayate-sensei was fighting the one that was clearly the leader. The leader had probably had at least _some_ shinobi training as even Naruto could see that he was using chakra to make himself faster and to hit harder. He nodded and smiled at Satoshi. "I'll go out with a bang."

Satoshi smiled back and then turned around as some other bandit came at him from behind, hoping to take him out by surprise. Naruto felt himself smile and wondered what it was about Satoshi that could make him feel better even when he was insulting him. Well, it didn't really matter now did it? He had other things to worry about.

Naruto turned around in time to catch the knife that were going to his unprotected back with one of his kunai's. He grunted from the force of it but didn't allow himself to let it stop him. He cleared his thoughts — he could think later — and threw himself forward. He was a shinobi. This was what they did. There wasn't a single shinobi, genin or otherwise, that wouldn't kill.

His movements came easier when he didn't think about it. Everything that wasn't relevant to the fight was left out. He could feel Satoshi behind him, fighting someone else and Hayate-sensei was still in his line of sight but he had his back to Naruto. The sun had started going down and the glow it caused gave a feeling of mystery to Naruto. The fighting and subsequent death only added to the feeling of otherworldly. His heart slowed down, he could hear his heartbeat in his ears, adrenaline flooded his blood and everything was so much clearer. He could faintly hear the sound of fighting around him, the grunts and clangs of metal meeting metal.

He didn't know the word for it.

There was only one thing in his mind and that was _victory_. He had told Satoshi he would go out with a bang and that was a promise. And he never went back on his promises, that's his nindo. His ninja way. He won't be like the old man, if he promises something, he's going to damn well keep it. His arm moved to block a move that could have pierced his heart and his eyes narrowed. The counter came easy, practiced often with Satoshi, but this was a bandit, he didn't know how to block and the kunai slid into his skull with practiced ease. He wanted to stop, to wonder about this, but then he saw more, coming at him with murderous intent. Later he would wonder if the man he had killed had mattered enough to them to the point they would meet death to avenge him.

Now, he just went into a basic taijutsu stance and waited for them to come to him.

His chakra flowed in his veins, ready to be used and Naruto listened, using a simple kawarimi to get out of harms way to behind them. He threw the shuriken's in his hands and they were flying toward them before they could react. Some of them fell as it hit them, never to wake up again, but most stood and took the pain out by rushing towards him. Naruto ducked under a vicious slash from a sword that would have surely taken his head right off had it hit him. He spun up in time to jump over another slash and turned in air to kick out at the one closest to him. He spun again and his fist made contact with a nose, a cringe worthy crunch the result. The world was going in slow-motion and Naruto thrived in it.

He rolled with the landing and bent out of the way of another slash, bringing out another batch of kunai from his pouch on his left leg as he did. The kunai's flew from his finger's towards the bandits and missed the majority of them. Some though, some were hit and wouldn't be getting up any time soon. His shoulder protested a movement when he went to get more shuriken's to throw, drawing his attention towards a wound on his shoulder he didn't even know he had.

He twisted out of the way of another slash by the same persistent swordsman and took up a knife that someone had dropped on his way. His shoulder may not let him bend it to take something from his pouch, but it could damn well stand picking up a knife and placing it in front of him to block the oncoming attack he could almost feel. The swordsman rushed forward and Naruto thanked the heaven's for the knife as he ducked and spun, a swear word on his lips. He grunted by the effort of blocking a slash to his chest and bent out of another towards his head. He twisted and frowned as he concentrated his chakra and with the hand behind him, he did the seals to substitute with something else, in this case a log.

He fell back towards the earth thanks to this thing called gravity and slashed with the knife in his hand on his way down. A long stream of blood followed by a scream announced that he had hit the swordsman. Before the man could even think of recuperating, Naruto swung the knife and buried it to the hilt in the mans neck.

And suddenly everything came rushing back again.

There was a hand on his shoulder. He was shaking he realized as he looked up at Hayate-sensei. He looked down at the corpse of the last man he had killed and as he looked around he saw that they were all dead. There were gashes and blood on them, most of their eyes still open. The smell of blood was strong in the air and Naruto had the urge to vomit. He had actually done this, hadn't he? He had killed these people in cold blood. _He_ had _killed_ them. _Slaughtered_ them.

He felt the hand that was on his shoulder grab a hold of his hair and Naruto was grateful as he recognized Hayate's smell chasing away the blood. The thought of the blood that was _everywhere_ made him vomit again and Naruto wondered why he thought being a ninja was cool.

The sound of his sensei's voice finally reached him as the sound of his blood pumping in his ears receded. He could hear him murmuring reassures to him, that it was alright, that he only did what he had too. That it was his mission and he did a good job. Naruto blinked down at his hands and the blood on them made him nauseous again but Naruto held back and looked away, making him see Satoshi standing in front of him. He was shaking slightly and he was looking down, but other then that there was no difference. He had blood on him and Naruto couldn't tell if it was Satoshi's or someone else's. His smell made Naruto want to vomit again and he looked back at Hayate-sensei before he started emptying pure stomach acid.

Sound came rushing back and suddenly everything was _so loud_. Leaves were rustling and he could hear Mari throwing up behind him, belatedly making him wonder why Hayate-sensei was sitting with him and not Mari. There was the sound of fast breathing next to his ear and then he felt the beginning of pain settle in. Where was it coming from? The wound on his shoulder couldn't be big enough for him to feel this kind of pain. He had only felt it once before and that was when he was stabbed.

Oh.

Well that explained it.

He looked down and between his lungs was a bloody knife sticking out of his chest.


	5. Chapter 5

_"Stand up, shout it out  
Sing it loud, so the world can't drown us out.  
And before we depart let's leave a mark.  
'Cuz light shines brighter in the dark._

 _When we scream,_  
 _our lips don't make a sound._  
 _We march with feet on solid ground,_  
 _we walk, where no-one wants to go._  
 _On this untraveled road."_

 _\- Untraveled Road by Thousand Foot Krutch_

 **Chapter Five**

Mari stared at Makoto where he laid in their sensei's arms with a knife sticking out of his chest. She'd known he had a high pain tolerance, but to not notice a knife wound so close to his heart and lungs spoke of a story she didn't want to know. Makoto had lost consciousness soon after seeing the knife in his chest and she didn't blame him. He'd already lost a fair bit of blood and seeing a knife so close to your heart couldn't be pleasant. But they were more then a day away from Konoha and even though she had studied medical ninjutsu, she didn't think she could heal a wound that delicate without rupturing something. Probably the heart or lungs and she couldn't take that risk.

She didn't want to lose him.

Hayate-sensei stood up from the forest floor with Makoto in his arms and inclined his head to show they were to follow him. She looked behind her at Satoshi but he was stone faced, she knew though, in her heart, that he was just as worried about Makoto that she was. She had an inkling that this was what it felt like to be worried about ones little brother. And wasn't that weird. When she had first gotten her genin team, she had expected to just tolerate them, if that, especially that Uchiha boy, but she had started to care for them slowly but surely. Makoto just had this way to get under people's skin.

And now he might die and she didn't know what to do. She didn't want to lose him and she had promised him that he would get to meet her little brother when they got back to Konoha. Which meant that he _had to_ get back home. Which meant he had to live. He had to survive.

She didn't know what to do.

They stopped in the clearing they had found on the way to the bandits that wasn't so far off from where they slept the night before. Mari found herself unable to tear her eyes away from Makoto for even a second as Satoshi made quick work of unsealing the medical supplies they had brought with them.

Hayate-sensei sat Makoto down on the futon Satoshi unsealed and Mari hurried forward to help keep him still. "I need you to hold him down while I pull out the knife, Mari and Satoshi be ready with the towels. We need to stop his bleeding before he loses too much blood." Hayate said and Mari quickly nodded. She took a hold of Makoto's shoulders and bent down to get as much strength as she could. She knew herself how much stronger he was than he looked.

At the edge of her eyes, she could see Satoshi as he came closer and ready with the sand-colored towels in his hands. Hayate-sensei took a hold of the knife and — when he was sure that she had a steady grip — started pulling the knife out of Makoto's chest. They couldn't leave that way until their return to Konoha, the travel could move the knife, subsequently killing him.

The knife was almost halfway out when Makoto's eyes snapped open. He gasped and then the scream came. Mari flinched but took a steady breath and held him down harder. Makoto screamed and trashed and Mari was sure she was going to lose her hold on him. She didn't her best to keep him still while Hayate-sensei pulled out the blood-covered knife from Makoto, but the screaming was becoming too much to her. She couldn't bear to see someone she concidered family in so much pain and knowing that the only thing she could even remotely do to help was hold him down so he didn't hurt himself even more trying to get away. She couldn't get rid of the feeling that she — that _they_ — were betraying him. She didn't even know where the feeling was coming from, they needed to do this to keep him alive, to give him a chance at survival. She shouldn't be feeling guilty.

But she was and the feeling only intensified each time he screamed.

Makoto was covered in grime and dirt and he smelled of blood and sweat. Mari was biting her lip to keep from joining Makoto to scream her pain and frustration out to the world. It wasn't going to do anything good if she suddenly started screaming too. Makoto's blue eyes were clenched shut in pain and his red hair was laying loose on the forest having came out of the tail it was usually in, looking almost black in the night.

Mari was suddenly hit with the fact that Makoto, a child and just someone she cared about, could very well die tonight and she wouldn't be able to help him. She didn't know how. She promised herself — and Makoto and Satoshi and Hayate-sensei — that if he lived, even if he didn't, she was going to start training to become a medic-nin seriously. She was going to ask for help at the hospital, she was going to practise her chakra control until it was perfect and she was going to make sure that something like this wasn't ever going to happen again. Her little brother wanted to a civilian, an architect, and she was hit with how relieved it made her.

Her brother could live his entire life without having to kill someone or watching someone he loved die at someone else's hands if he was lucky and she prayed that he was.

Hayate-sensei finally pulled the knife clean out and Satoshi quickly held the towels to the wound, red quickly coloring it. Mari held him down a while longer before she came to the conclusion he wasn't going to try to get away any more. Satoshi was periodically lifting the towels and switching to a clean one while Hayate-sensei made quick an efficient work of sewing it together. It would most likely scar, but he would also hopefully live. Now they just needed to wait and hope he didn't get an infection so they could take him back to Konoha once the sun rose.

"You should get some sleep. I'll take first watch, Satoshi you take second and Mari you take last. Make sure to remember to check on Makoto and if he gets a fever, wake me up immediatly." Hayate-sensei said and Mari nodded. She _was_ tired and sleep could do her some good.

— —

The next morning, they left as soon as dawn came. They needed to get to Konoha as fast as possible and make sure that Makoto got proper care for his injuries. He had a nasty cut on his shoulder that they hadn't really paid attention too but in the morning light, they could make out that it was pretty severe too. This just worried Mari more.

Satoshi was silent as they ran on the ground, faster then civilians due to the chakra they were constantly circulating through their legs. They stayed on the ground in an attempt to not re open Makoto's wound on his chest, as it had just stopped bleeding. He healed fast and Mari wondered briefly if he had some kind of bloodline before she shook her head and focused back on running as fast as she could keep up. They needed to get to Konoha and Mari wasn't going to slow them down.

Her Byakugan was on as she used it to periodically look around and check for any enemies, they didn't have the time for fighting and Makoto was currently the weak link, meaning any enemies would go after him first and they couldn't afford that either. Makoto needed medical care and as fast as he was healing, the wound was still there, maybe not bleeding as much anymore but still as open as before and only held together by the bandages Hayate-sensei had put on him. She wondered if he's healing was even faster and the only reason it hadn't healed completely yet because of some internal bleeding, which just made her hurry even more. She had seen how fast he healed after their spars and if he was bleeding internally than they needed to go back to Konoha fast. She didn't know if the healing could even heal internal wounds or if it was just stopping the build-up of blood from killing him.

By the time they made it back to Konoha, it was in the middle of the night, closer to morning then night almost. They walked right past the guards at the gate and hurried straight to the hospital and Mari had never been more grateful for the training to stay awake for days at a time and sleeping odd hours to make sure they could take whatever mission they needed to when it was needed.

The knife wound had finally starting healing, but the cut on his shoulder was still there in all its glory and Mari figured it wasn't such a stretch to think that the most severe wounds healed first to ensure the best chance for survival. It made sense, she thought as she looked at Makoto who was laying still on a hospital bed with the cut healed and the wound on his chest from the knife stitched closed. It was a waiting game now, they said, but his progress looked good, so he would most likely survive with only some scarring. It was the best thing she had heard the entire day.

— —

When Naruto woke up, it was to the sound of talking. The smell of disinfectant and stale air made it easy to recognize the hospital he had only ever been in twice to his memory, but the smell was so horrible, he remembered it even years later. He felt sore all over and could recognize the feeling of his chakra healing him and the taste of blood it left in his mouth when it was done. He could remember looking down and seeing a knife sticking out of his chest, but nothing after that, but he figured that if he was at a hospital then his Makoto henge must of held strong and they had gotten him back to Konoha.

Well he hoped so at least, if he was captured it would really ruin his day.

He opened his eyes and stared up at the white ceiling of his hospital room. The familiar feeling of Hayate-sensei's chakra stopped him from attempting to leave the bed to go look for his teammates to make sure they were okay. He couldn't remember seeing if they were alright before he passed out and he wanted to know how they were feeling.

A cough got his attention. "Ah, you're awake now Naruto-kun? Mari and Satoshi has been worried about you." Naruto looked to his right and saw Hayate-sensei sitting in an uncomfortable looking chair by his bed.

Naruto looked around the room, not seeing his teammates. "Where are they? Are the okay?"

"They're fine, a few cuts and bruises, but otherwise okay. You were the only one seriously injured and besides a scar you'll be healing just fine. Mari and Satoshi just went home to eat as it's around midday. They'll be coming back once they've changed clothes, showered and eaten something. You worried us quite a bit, you know." Hayate-sensei said and Naruto looked down and smiled in relief that they were fine. The thought of them being worried about made a warm feeling grow in his chest. Besides Hokage-jiji no-one had ever been worried about him before. He quite liked the feeling of knowing that someone cared that he was hurt. It made a tingly feeling in his stomach that made him want to laugh and cry from the rooftops that _he had friends!_ That he had people that cared about him.

You could argue as much as you wanted that they didn't know the real 'him', but Naruto had never changed more than his looks when he made Makoto. He was the same as he had always been and it wasn't his fault if people were blinded by whatever made them hate him to see him for who he was.

Naruto smiled at Hayate-sensei. "I'm glad."

Hayate coughed before he stood up and ruffled Naruto's hair as he passed him. "Remember to make the report as accurate as possible. Make sure you write down anything you find important. Yamanaka-san will come by in an hour or two too evaluate you. You're only seven years old, so if you find that you can't handle the shinobi life just yet, make sure you tell him. We want to prevent future breakdowns to ensure that shinobi's stay relatively sane while they're still powerful enough to be a threat if they ever lose it. I'll be returning with Mari and Satoshi around dinner time, so try to rest for a bit."

Naruto nodded. He wasn't actually sure what he thought of the shinobi lifestyle, he had never given it much thought, but he'd almost died. It wasn't the first time he was near death, but this time it was much closer than before, most likely due to the fact that there was no nearby hospital. However, this time it wasn't personal. It wasn't someone from Konoha calling him a demon, it wasn't an angry mob of villagers on his birthday trying to kill him and it wasn't somebody he knew. In a way he was relieved. He'd always wondered if Konoha was what was going to kill him one of these days and the thought of dying on a mission, having his name on the Memorial Stone, wasn't something he had anything against. He didn't have any family, and he needed money, he could handle the thought of somebody killing him, there was no reason for him to stop being a shinobi. The prospect of seeing someone else die, especially for his sake, wasn't pleasant and he didn't like the idea one bit, but he didn't want to stop being a ninja. _He didn't want to quit._

Say what you will about it and what it implied when he didn't want to stop and wasn't bothered by the thought of dying before he reach the age of ten, but he wasn't quitting.

He'd fought for survival all his life, it was all that he had ever known. Being a civilian or a shinobi didn't change anything, all it meant was that this way someone who wasn't from Konoha was more likely to kill him. And he didn't want the village he had grown up in, the one his grandfather-figure loved, the one he had sworn to serve until death, to be the thing to kill him.

It was selfish and a stupid decision from a kid, but this was his life and if he wanted to spend it doing mission's for the village he loved — even if it didn't love him — then that was his decision. Nobody else's.

Naruto spent the time watching television while he waited for Yamanaka-san to show up. He had made his decision, he was going to remain as a shinobi, but he really didn't feel like going insane so he was going to listen to Yamanaka-san if he said it was better for Naruto to take some time off, beside the time it would take for his wound too heal.

There wasn't anything interesting on the tv, so he mostly just entertained himself by mocking the characters and the rest of the time was spent sapping through the channels. By the time a knock on the door and a nurse peeking her head in too see him awake indicated the arrival of Yamanaka-san, he was very bored.

The blond man that came in wasn't what Naruto had expected, but then again, he'd never really met a Yamanaka before from what he could remember. "Hello, Katsumi-san, I am Yamanaka Inoichi. I have a couple of questions I would like you to answer honestly to the best of your ability."

Naruto nodded, because being honest in this kind of thing was kind of a given. He had no desire to be accused of treason because he lied to his psychologist about what he felt like when he was almost stabbed to death. It seemed pointless and even he had heard of Ibiki of T&I. "It's fine, I'll do my best to be honest. Fire away."

Yamanaka-san nodded in return and sat down on the chair Hayate-sensei had left a few hours ago. And then the questions began. They ranged from his favourite color to his estimate of his own abilities. He asked what he felt like when he realized he had a knife in his chest, what Naruto would like to do if he didn't have the option of being a shinobi, what method he preferred when it came to killing and how he would like to die himself. For over three hours they talked and Naruto answered all questions to the best of his ability, careful to make sure that all his lies concerning his life as Makoto had some truth in them. In his experience, all lies were better when they had truth hidden within. It had a tendency to make them more believable.

He did his best to keep to lying as little as possible though, as like he said, he had no desire to meet Ibiki.

By the time Yamanaka-san left, Naruto was exhausted. It was almost time for dinner and he couldn't wait to see his teammates, to make sure they really weren't seriously harmed. They were his best friends and he really didn't want to loose them.

When Hayate-sensei finally entered his room together with Mari and Satoshi, Naruto was hard pressed to keep his eyes open, but he was determined to stay awake until he could see that they were fine for himself with his own eyes.

"Makoto, the doctor said you'll be here for a week and they've already contacted you're emergency contact, a Katsu Takeshi I believe. He'll be here tomorrow." Hayate-sensei said.

Naruto nodded, he'd almost forgotten that he'd made Takeshi his emergency contact when he'd officially became a genin. Because of the fact that they were on the same team, there was always the possibility that they would all be injured at the same time and as such they couldn't be his emergency contact. Takeshi was the only one he knew well enough to concider a friend outside of his teammates. He wondered what Takeshi thought when he found out that he had been injured. Hopefully he hadn't made him worry too much.

"Now as you can see Satoshi and Mari are fine and you can get back to resting. You need sleep. We'll visit." and then they were gone out the door and Naruto was left alone in the hospital room that he hated. He sighed and frowned when he thought about needing to stay for a week. The restlessness was going to kill him if he couldn't move around for an entire week. He just had too much energy to stay still for long. Maybe he could convince Takeshi to teach him to play som board-games. He'd always been curious about what old people found so interesting about them.

They seemed kind of boring to him.

By the time Takeshi opened the door to Naruto's room, he was sound asleep.

— —

A week passed by and Naruto had attempted multiple escapes from the hospital, all failed. Medic-nin's could be freaking _scary_. Most of his time had been spent trying to figure out how to play Go or reading scrolls on fūinjutsu. That was really all there was to do and Takeshi couldn't be there with him all the time explaining why that would be a terrible move and that yes, he was not allowed to do that in Go.

Simply put, he was bored.

Naruto sighed once again as he looked out the window. It was finally the day for him to be released from the hospital and Naruto was glad that except for a new scar from the knife wound, there wasn't any traces of his wounds to be found as he was supposed to meet Hokage-jiji the next day to eat together at Ichiraku and catch up. The last time they had seen each other when he was Naruto was over three weeks ago and Sarutobi still had no idea that Naruto and Makoto were one and the same. Once he made chūnin he would tell him. Until then though, he would just have to find some way too keep up the charade that he was two different people.

Sometimes the age difference, how to act four years older then he was, put him in some troubles but thankfully his team seemed think he just had childish episodes. Besides, he hadn't been a little kid in a long time.

The door opened and his doctor walked in. His doctor was an old man in the middle of his fifties that had been around for a war or two and was a little bit cynical because of it. Thankfully he believed Naruto when he said that he had no idea who his parents were when the doctor wondered about his quick healing. Apparently people who's chakra control was bad — say civilians, genin's and some chūnin's — had the habit of the chakra fluctuating to the persons emotions, making lying to a shinobi extremely difficult. Naruto's chakra control still needed a lot of work, he'd barely made any progress at all and still wasted chakra with each technique. It was Naruto's habit of half-truths, things that were technically true if you looked at it in a specific way and white-lies that saved him when he lied to shinobi's concerning his identity.

His doctor looked threw the machines attached to him. "It looks like everything's fine. You have healed up and are ready to go. For the next two weeks, you're confined to only D-rank missions to be on the safe side. You've already been signed out so all you need to do is change clothes and then you're ready to leave."

Naruto nodded and beamed at the man as he sat up from the bed he had been laying on. He was sick of all the white and really just wanted to go home. The steril smell irritated him and made him want to fill the room with flowers just to get rid of it. The only flowers he had though was a gift from Mari and they weren't enough to erase the smell of disinfectant and blood. His nose was more sensitive then a normal person's and it disturbed him though he was thankfully able to ignore it most of the time.

As the doctor left, Naruto was busy changing from the clothes the hospital provided to his own that Hayate-sensei had grabbed for him from his apartment. After he was finished, he hurried out of his room and passed the corridors and stairs barely able to contain his excitement to breathe in non-hospital air. He had been stuck in that hospital for a week and it had been horrible. He didn't think he had ever been so bored before in his short life, after all there was only so much time he could spend playing a game against himself which rules he didn't even fully know.

Once he was out, the first place he hurried too was Ichiraku. He had been without his beloved ramen for over a week and it was something he needed to fix right away. He was going to eat ramen until he couldn't force himself to take another bite or until he ran out of money. Seriously, with the amount of ramen he eats, it was expensive. He got discounts due to the amount that he consumed but it was still a lot of money that was spent in one setting. It was why he always tried to get Hokage-jiji to go get ramen with him.

Jiji always paid for him when they ate out together.

Naruto smiled at Teuchi as he sat at the counter and ordered three bowls of miso ramen. He would get more later, when he had eaten the first ones. It was when the red hair fell into his eyes that he remembered he was currently looking like Makoto. As time passed, he found himself sometimes forgetting what he looked like. If his hair was red or blond. Well, not that he really cared, how he looked had never actually mattered too him and he hadn't known what color his eyes were before he found a broken mirror when he first lived on the streets. He was him no matter what his hair color was and sometimes, the red felt more natural then the yellow. He'd heard somewhere once that Uzumaki's were known for their vibrant red hair and figured that was it.

Eh, that didn't really matter much anyways, not when he was finally out of the hospital and free to eat ramen again.

He could barely keep from beaming as he ate the food of the gods that was holy ramen!

When he felt someone sit down at his left side, he barely glanced at them — only catching sight of long black hair pulled into a tail at the base of the neck and pale skin, enough to see it was an Uchiha based on the fan on the back of the clothing —and only continued too eat. He was in a far too good of a mood to care that someone he didn't know was sitting so close too him. It wasn't Satoshi and that was all he needed to know before going back to his eating as he ordered another two bowls of ramen. Ramen deserved to be enjoyed! And the Uchiha wasn't even looking at him, so Naruto felt no need to pay particular attention to them.

Though the question of whether they were a boy or a girl did come up in his thoughts.

So Naruto continued eating his beloved ramen and the Uchiha laid his face to memory due to the red hair that the boy barely managed to keep from falling into the bowls as he ate bowl after bowl of ramen and his chakra level that indicated that he was already an active shinobi. He'd later look up red-headed ninja clans in his family library, notice the name Uzumaki and wonder if the boy would follow his ancestors and focus on fūinjutsu.

* * *

 **A/N: Ehm, reviews? Please? Tell me what you think.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

The thing was, after the attack from the Kyuubi, a lot of kids were orphans and a lot of papers got lost in transition (another reason Danzo could get away with kidnapping so many orphans) and a kid from the streets trying to get a better life by becoming a shinobi without the proper papers, while not common, wasn't exactly that rare either. This made Naruto's new identity that much more believable and together with the fact that he honestly had no idea who his parents were, made it possible for Naruto to set up a different identity without much fuss. He hadn't lied to Yamanaka-san and after having been stranded in the streets, he _had_ grown up some so even his pretend age seemed reasonable. The fact was, that removing some words and adding some more and then letting other people draw their own conclusions was much more easier to Naruto than lying outright, which he still sucked at. He just had too many tells for it to be believable to an experienced shinobi, which also brought credit to his story. After all, he was a horrible liar that let all of his emotions show on his face.

Granted, Yamanaka-san was suspicious that he was lying about his age, but that was really the only thing he had picked up on. Naruto was just grateful that he hadn't taken a walk in his mind as the idea of someone else gaining access to the only that had truly been _his_ for so long was uncomfortable and made him want to run and hide.

So he was possessive of what was his, could you blame him?

— —

The two week period of only D-rans weren't much different then before. The phantom pains in his scar stopped happening and although he occasionally still had nightmares abut killing all those people, it was getting better. By the time the two weeks had passed, he had had the Tora mission a total of six times. That cat really liked escaping, and the people at the mission office had apparently picked up on the fact that Tora didn't really resist when it was time for Naruto to pick him up. Sure, Tora led him on a merry chase, but the cat seemed to think of it as some kind of game and always cuddled up to him after he caught it. As a result, he was apparently first in the line for the Tora Capture Mission unless a jounin requested the mission for his genin team for one reason or another.

Naruto blinked where he was sitting at training ground three with Tora in his lap asleep. Apparently the cat had escaped again and Naruto had happened upon it by accident and one thing had led to another until he was waiting for his team at the usual training ground. The cat that was commonly referred to as a demon had apparently taken a shine to him. Honestly, Naruto was starting think that Tora found him on purpose when he escaped from his owner, a fat lady that hugged it practically to death each time she got it back. Apparently she was really important but Naruto hadn't really been paying attention to her when he was introduced, to busy trying to get a certain terrified cat to stop trying to claw him into bits in a desperate attempt to hold onto him.

"What are you doing?" came Satoshi's slightly disturbed voice from behind him. Naruto looked up from where he had been petting Tora.

"Waiting for you." came the blunt answer.

Satoshi's right eye twitched, a sign that he was irritated with him and Naruto grinned knowing that his quest to become friends with the teenager was going right according to plan.

Satoshi took a calming breath. "I mean, what are you doing wit that cursed cat?"

Naruto beamed up at the boy and carefully extracted the black cat from his lap and stood up. "I found Tora! We are just getting tired f waiting and decided to play a game of chase around the training ground and then Tora got tired and went to sleep in my lap."

For a second, Satoshi looked at him as if he thought he'd gone insane, then he took a deep breath and said in a tightly controlled voice. "Makoto, are you telling me that you and Tora are what, friends?"

"Eh, what are you talking about, of course we're friends, otherwise Tora wouldn't play chase with me all the time! What did you think we were doing on my Tora Capture missions? Tora just doesn't like you, that's why you never manage to catch them." Naruto said in a duh tone, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Them?" Satoshi asked.

Naruto sheepishly scratched the back of his neck. "I can't tell if Tora's a boy or girl cat."

Satoshi stared at him in silence for a minute before he rolled his eyes and walked away to start doing his taijutsu katas. After a moment of hesitation, Naruto walked next to him and started doing his as well. He'd gotten a lot better at taijutsu during the four months he'd been a genin. He was still learning less complicated taijutsu stances than Satoshi and Mari, but he was getting there and as long as he was moving forward, it didn't really matter how long it took anyway.

An hour later and Mari and Hamate-Sensei had both arrived and Naruto was once again working on his chakra control. He was just getting started on running up the tree again when Hayate-sensei stopped him.

"Makoto, do you know how to swim?" Hayate-sensei asked.

Naruto shook his head. He hadn't exactly had a lot of opportunities to learn.

Hayate-sensei nodded. "Thought so. Alright, you'll just have to stay in the shallower waters until you learn then."

Naruto looked at him with a suspicious look in his blue eyes and squinted. "Are you going to teach me to swim?"

Hayate-sensei shook his head no. "You're going to learn how to walk on water. Despite having spent months on tree climbing, you still can't do the Bunshin no Jutsu and I can't teach you the special clone technique until you have better chakra control. But every time your control improves, your chakra amount increases. Simply put, you're not catching up fast enough for it to make a big enough difference. So you're going to learn to walk on water and until you master it, you'll undoubtedly fall in. The river is right next to us, find a quit and shallow part and I'll come and help you get started in a minute."

Naruto nodded his head and smiled, glad that he was finally going to move on with his training. Honestly, the tree climbing was getting so boring that he stopped walking up it and started running up the tree again despite having better control.

He sipped to the edge of the river and beamed as he took a stick longer than him and shoved it down into the waters to measure how deep it was. If he fell down then he needed to be able to stand above the surface with his face at least. Even he knew that. Naruto frowned when his hand followed the stick into the water and he was shocked by how cold it was.

Well it didn't matter how cold it was, Hayate-sensei was finally teaching him something that wasn't a taijutsu kata – no matter how exciting it was to learn a new one, it was still boring after a while, especially as Satoshi and he didn't spar very often – so he'd just have to bear it. He grinned when he imagined Takeshi's face when Naruto showed him that he could walk on water. It was going to be fantastic!

By the time Hayate-sensei came back from giving pointers to Mari, Naruto had found a suitable place where the water only came up to his shoulders where he could learn to walk on water. It was going to be awesome!

Naruto grinned as Hayate-sensei told him how to do it. "The reason this exercise is harder then tree walking is because unlike when you walk up a tree, on water you need to constantly change your chakra output in order to match the water that is ever moving. Just pushing chakra out steadily like you do when you walk on trees isn't good enough. This is a trial and error kind of exercise, so you'll learn with every mistake you make. Take your time Makoto-kun, and when you're ready I'll teach you the Kage no Jutsu."

"Yes! I'll make teach me that jutsu in no time!" Naruto beamed up at Hayate-sensei as he walked out on the water. Unfortunately, that was as far as got as when he took the first step, his foot went right through the surface of the water and Naruto fell into it.

He came up sputtering and spitting out water as he worked on getting out of his now soaked through clothes. He grimaced when he realized it was going to take hours for them to get dry again. He came out of the water in his shorts and pulled his ninja shoes off his feet.

Naruto looked up at the sound of laughter and stared with an open mouth and wide eyes as Satoshi laughed at him from where he was training with his fire techniques. He set his mouth in a firm line and turned around to get back on the water, this time with chakra already pulsing out of his feet. He laughed when he made the first step, and then he lost his concentration and fell down again.

Well, it didn't matter, he was going to do this, dattebayo!

— —

It turned out that walking on water was a lot harder then Naruto thought. After a week of daily training, Naruto had barely gotten anywhere. He had started to ignore the walking part and just trying to stay afloat, but even that was difficult as he needed to constantly change his chakra output. It wasn't so much that Naruto didn't want to walk on water – because that would be awesome! – it was more that it was tricky in a Naruto had never encountered before. Well, as long as he thought it would be useful in his pranking – not mention being able to run away after he pranks someone across the water so they won't be able to fallow – it was easy enough to put in the effort to concentrate and try. Not to mention, he really wanted to know that clone jutsu.

Naruto slurped more ramen as he practically breathed in the third bowl he was eating. He'd managed to walk four steps across the water before he fell down that day and Hayate-sensei had given him some money and told him to go celebrate.

Although Naruto's work hours at the shop with Takeshi had dropped and he only came in a few hours a week, he still made sure to get in a few hours of work every week, no matter how many missions they took. He liked working there, it was common and he got a discount when he bought weapons and shinobi clothes. Even if Satoshi and Mari looked at him funny every time he said he was going to work, it was so worth. He'd gotten really cool new kana's from the shop at half price when he found out that his other ones were so out of balance it wasn't even funny. Naruto was starting to think that maybe getting them out of a trashcan had not been one of his best ideas.

Well, at the time he hadn't exactly had enough money after buying the apartment to spend on better ninja knives, but he had kind of just forgotten about it afterwards. The fact that Satoshi was the one that found out and subsequently teased him about it was another matter. The point was, his old kunai's sucked and Takeshi had given him new one's at an awesome price.

Basically, Takeshi was awesome!

So Naruto worked there a few hours every week and the money that he got from it was just another plus, not to mention that he lacked a echoing amount of equipment that Hayate-sensei said was just common sense to have. He still hadn't gotten runs to buying a tent. He didn't see the point of it when it was much easier to sleep in a tree. Sure he'd fallen out of a few when he first started doing it, but now it was almost to easy. He'd stopped moving around when he slept in trees and it was almost comfortable. He still did it sometimes, when he was feeling lonely because he hadn't met Hokage-jiji in a while.

The seating of someone next to him made Naruto pause and look up from his eating of the godly for that was named ramen. Seriously, it should be the official food of Konoha!

It was a kid that was his real age, not the age he pretended to be when he was Makoto and Naruto almost frowned at how indifferent the kid seemed towards the bowl of ramen that was in front of him. Like he was bored and Naruto got the urge to pull the brown hair-tail on his head in retaliation for the awesomeness that was ramen.

But he was a shinobi and shinobi's didn't pull hair tails. Unless they were in a fight of course, but Hayate-sensei had told him it wasn't good matter to pull at the hair of someone from the same village as you, especially if they were younger than you, after he pulled at Mari's hair during one of their weekly spars.

She had made the most hilarious face and the next day she'd come to training with her brown hair cut to her shoulders instead of down her back like it usually was.

Naruto thought it made her look even prettier and when he told her that, she'd blushed and laughed at him. Naruto really didn't get why telling her she was pretty made her laugh at him when it was true and when he told Hayate-sensei that, the man had frowned at him before smiling at him and telling him that a woman's mind was one of the great mystery's of the world. Naruto didn't really get that either, because Mari was a girl, but apparently a woman is an girl that has grown up. It was all really complicated and Naruto had stopped listening after being told that girls apparently liked being cold women even if they weren't grown up yet.

Apparently when girls grew up, they became even scarier when they became women, which Naruto thought was totally unnecessary, Mari could be completely terrifying when she was pissed at something he did. Once when he switched all her shuriken with paper, she'd yelled at him about the importance of properly taking care of weapons and the necessaries of using weapons ins battle.

Even Takeshi had lectured him when he told him what happened about taking care and responsibility of his weapons and tools.

So Mari was terrifying and even _Satoshi_ thought so. Which just proved it.

The strange kid sitting next to him let out a yawn and Naruto had to reign in the urge to take his half-full bowl of ramen from him when it was clear that he wasn't going to finish it. Hayate-sensei had said that he wasn't allowed to do that, apparently it was rude and a form of stealing, which didn't really make sense to him, because ninja's stole important scrolls from each other all the time.

Again it was apparently something his parents were supposed to tell and had to do with his loyalty to Konoha. Which also didn't make much sense, because he wasn't loyal to Konoha, he didn't _know_ Konohagakure no Sato good enough to _be_ loyal to it. Naruto was loyal to his friends and his team, to Hokage-jiji and Takeshi, but he wasn't loyal to Konoha. Not yet, at least. When he told Hayate-sensei, he looked sad and then said that he just needed to make more friends and get to know the people who lived in his village better.

Naruto didn't really get it, but he liked the idea of more friends.

And so he was eating ramen at his favorite place and waiting for someone to talk to him, because he really didn't know how to make friends unless they had to spend time with him. He didn't know how to make them stay long enough to become friends. The kid next to him that was disrespecting the awesomeness that was ramen was a giving him a good enough excuse to talk to him.

Naruto breathed in and put his fifth bowl of ramen down to properly turn towards the kid next to him. "If you're not going to finish that, can I have it?"

The kid opened his closed eyes where he had been looking to be half asleep and glanced at him. "Troublesome. Take it if you want it."

Naruto grinned at him for a second before he took the bowl and started slurping it down in a few seconds. The joy that was disguised as ramen made him feel better already and he figured he only had a few hours left before he was supposed to meet with Hokage-jiji. As himself.

The kind next to him looked at him with something in his eyes. It took Naruto a few tries to remember where he had seen it before. It was fascination, something he'd only seen before when Satoshi was looking at the hawk that had came to give Hayate-sensei a mission two days ago, which was why he had so much free time. He could, technically, be out as Naruto, but he liked the absence of looks of fear and hatred from the people around him. He didn't get where either of the two emotions came fro though, he'd never done anything to deserve fear but he figured it didn't matter either way. He just had to prove he wasn't frightening.

After sitting and twisting his now red hair around his fingers in boredom and eating some more ramen, he finally stood up when he reckoned it was about time to see the man he though of as his grandfather. He really didn't feel like waiting anymore.

— —

The office of the Hokage seemed to get another feeling from it when he wasn't there on official business. Naruto smiled as he waved to the secretary that just looked away from him, she'd never liked him but at least she didn't say anything bad to him, she just ignored him.

Which was kind of bad too, but Naruto didn't really care either way. He disliked it when someone ignored his presence like he wasn't there, but Hokage-jiji had told him that it was better then when they told and shouted bad things to him. Naruto had the feeling that the old man had never been ignored, which was obvious as he was the strongest shinobi in Konoha. But still, the old man should get out of his office more and see the people of the village better. It couldn't be easy to get a good view from how high up the tower was and Hokage-jiji's tower was at the very top floor. Naruto had to climb a lot of stairs to get there.

It was incredibly boring.

Hokage-jiji was sitting behind his big desk when Naruto ran in, doing paperwork. Naruto had never understood why he didn't use clones to do it for him but whenever he asked, jiji just looked pained before he said it was an old law from the Shodaime was still hokage. Apparently, they had never had the presence of mind to get it revoked, but now his advisers were apparently thinking him weak and would apparently think Hokage-jiji even weaker if he used clones to do his paperwork for some reason.

Naruto really didn't understand the weirdness of adults.

The old man looked up when Naruto ran up to him and smiled down at him. Naruto grinned, a little relieved that despite being so old, the old man was still going strong. It looked like it would be a few more years until Naruto became the Hokage. Which sucked, but Sandaime-jiji deserved to have something to himself now that he was getting so old. Naruto didn't really get what it was all about, but apparently he didn't spend a lot of time with his kids and grandchild.

Not that Naruto was one to talk, considering he had neither, but he'd like to think that if he ever had kids when he grew up and became hokage, he would spend time with them.

"Hello Naruto, I'm finished in a minute. Just wait at the couch." said Hokage-jiji.

Naruto pouted at the thought that he was still not done, but he calmed down when he saw the calligraphy kit sitting on the table next to the dark green couch. The entire office was made in forest colors, the brown of the bark on trees, the green of the leafs and the blue of the sky. Naruto nodded his head distracted to the old man while he sat down in for of the paper already laid out on the table.

Calligraphy was something Naruto was about as good at as he was at sitting still for an hour. Bluntly put, he sucked at it. But Naruto had decided that he was going to learn fūinjutsu after he decided that medical ninjutsu just wasn't for him. He had zero talent for it and it just didn't seem cool. With fūinjutsu, he could make flash bombs that would be flashy and light up everything. It was going to be amazing!

Bluntly put, Naruto was going to learn fūinjutsu, forgoing medical ninjutsu and trying genjutsu again when he had better chakra control and could actually stay _on top of_ the water when he tried to walk on it.

So for the next half-hour, while waiting for Hokage-jiji to finish with his paperwork, Naruto worked on his calligraphy in order to improve his handwriting enough to be able to use fūinjutsu. He was starting to read scrolls and books he'd gotten from the library, but although he had access to the chūnin and genin parts of it as a genin, he didn't have access to the jōnin pat yet. Apparently, you only had access to one rank above you in order to give you the chance improve in a chosen field and try for promotion.

By limiting the amount of knowledge you had access to, they are basically saying that in order to know more, you had to get stronger. A good enough reason for Naruto to get stronger. Now that he knew how to read, he found it helped him get away from reality for a short while. Abut an hour actually, before he couldn't sit still any longer.

And Mari had told him that by reading, he was getting smarter and would become a better shinobi.

"So Naruto, do you want to talk about something?" Sandaime-jiji asked.

Naruto shook his head and popped out a: "Nope!"

The old man in the funny hat that Naruto swore would be his one day looked at him and frowned for a second before he continued speaking. "Naruto how much ramen have you had today?"

Naruto thought for a minute and tilted his head. "Uhm, maybe six bowls."

"Naruto you know that too much ramen isn't good for you. If you want to became taller, you need to it more diverse food." stated Sarutobi-jiji.

"What's diverse mean?" Naruto asked with confusion in his eyes.

The old man in the hokage clothes sighed. "It means different, Naruto. You need to eat different food sometimes."

Naruto thought about it and then threw the thought away. He ate fruit that Mari gave him and sometimes Satoshi's mother Yumiko invited hm to eat food at her place. She was even teaching him to cook more complicated things. It was fun!

"Whatever, come on jiji, you promised you would spend time with me today!" Naruto pouted and looked at Hokage-jiji with wide puppy-dog eyes. Jiji always fell prey to them and spent more time within when he did that. Naruto thought that maybe jiji felt guilty about something, but he couldn't figure out what. Then he remembered that Satoshi ones mentioned that the hokage should know where everyone in his village came from in case of spies and figured that maybe Sandaime-jiji knew who his parents were. Then that though had been discarded as Naruto didn't mind as long as Hokage-jiji had a good reason. He would let him the secret for a while longer.

The old man chuckled and smiled at him and Naruto smiled back gratefully, glad that he would be staying. Spending time with his old man was always fun. Naruto sometime seven got to look at important papers and sort them. It was training for when he would become hokage and all that paperwork would become his.

They spent the next hour in peace, playing games and the old man trying to teach Naruto a game called shogi. They didn't get very far on that.

Naruto spent the time laughing as he played games with his jiji and tried to not think about anything else. His worry for Hayate-sensei was pushed to the back of his mind as he tried to ignore the fact that he hadn't seen him in days and he didn't know how much he had progressed with his water walking training. He was sure Hayate-sensei would be proud of him.

And of course, there was the matter of the fact that Mari had officially started her training to become a medic-non. Granted, she only spent a few hours a week at the hospital learning the very basics and observing as professionals did their jobs. But that still meant that she would eventually be leaving them.

She had promised that they would still meet though, so at least that was something.

Naruto blinked as he watched as Hokage-jiji went back to his papers at his desk. The couch was surprisingly comfortable and Naruto had fallen asleep there a few times before. It seemed that would once again be the case, as he could feel his eyes dropping.

He blinked again when he could feel a blanket being dropped over him by one of the ever present ninja guards around Hokage-jiji. They usually didn't come out around him though, though he knew that they were always around when he spent time with jiji. Naruto couldn't sense them as much as it was a feeling, instinct. Naruto had been watched his entire life by people with different intentions to the point that he could pretty accurately tell when he was being watched. It made the hairs in the back of his neck stand and he always got this falling feeling in his stomach when whoever watched him meant to hurt him.

It wasn't until he was practicing with Hayate-sensei that he found out that what he could feel was Killing Intent, although it was only instinct that wanted him when there was no killing intent present. Though Hayate-sensei had said that a good shinobi needed to both be unaffected by an enemy's killing intent and be in control of their own.

Naruto fell asleep on the couch in the Hokage's office in the company of the man he considered to be his grandfather and an elite shinobi in a dog mask with wild silver hair.

There were no nightmares that night.


End file.
